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Wednesday, July 27, 2016

10 Ways Personal Reflection can Break Through Writer’s Block

Writer’s Block can strike at any time, but it does not have
to be the duration you may have experienced in the past. When something isn’t
working in your writing session, you may not know immediately why that is, but
you can take it as a sign to take a moment and reflect.

That reflection can
break you through in these 10 ways:

1.It
can reveal favorable and unfavorable situations.

In times of busy-ness and stress,
it becomes harder to write on demand. This is because exhaustion is crowding in
and when you sit down to think, everything on your plate rises at once and
becomes overwhelming. No wonder it’s easier to do a mindless chore or a writing
assignment you have less stock in. In contrast, you can think of times when
writing has been a delight and thoughts arrived so fast you barely had time to
write them down. What was that setting and those circumstances? Introducing
those elements to the schedule you’ve taken the time to strip down to the
essentials will reconnect you with your muse.

2.It
can identify sources of inspiration for you.

Reflection makes connections
between what serves as inspirational process for you -- things like taking in arts and culture,
reading, being in nature, and spending time in great discussions & points
out what takes it away – stress, tiredness, and spending time without
inspirational input. You can adjust your intake accordingly.

3.It
can break down self defeating thoughts you are giving room to.

When you speak out loud the
things you are thinking you will quickly see which are unkind. The unkind
thoughts to others we are more quickly repentant of, but the ones to ourselves
we can be guilty of letting slide for far too long. Unless you are channeling that
angst into a character study in which you are okay with your readers privy to
all that, it will serve you much better to identify and shut down the negative
self talk, and come up with a fictional account of why your character is
feeling the way he or she is. It will be a much faster process without the
inner naysayer around.

4.It
can make room for creative thought.

Creative thought comes through
play, and spending time spinning “what if” into a proper yarn. It takes time
and it is worth it. Through creative thought your story line will take a new
direction and excite you. That will buy you more writing time. It’s not hard to
make yourself write when inspired.

5.It
can rejuvenate you and connect you with your why.

Reflection is a deep breath of
intellectual fresh air. The things you know to be true bump up against that
which you’ve been taking in from the world and reflection brings them out in
new ways like discussions, allegories, and artwork. If artists didn’t take time
to reflect, they couldn’t give to the world like they do. Write and share what you have to share.It can give voice to what you
want to say.

Reflection brings to the surface
things that you have been dwelling on. One of the best pieces of interviewing
advice an editor ever gave me was to ask the questions I myself wanted to know.
Usually everyone else is wondering too. Research the things you have been
spending time on. The same approach can be taken with fiction themes to
explore, settings and cultures you enjoy, etc.

7.It
can counteract your excuses.

When you are reflecting on the
falsehoods you are telling yourself, also be on the lookout for excuses.
Excuses fight against your underlying intent. Finding out what your excuses are
means instead of being confused as to why you are out of time, tired, at day’s
end, and still don’t have any writing done; you will have an action plan to
make sure the same thing doesn’t happen tomorrow.

8.It
can remind you of past successes.

You know you can make your
writing happen because you’ve done it before. When a story poured out of you, a
reader connected with you, an audience member laughed, or someone left a
comment on your blog – that experience can be repeated again, and again, and
again. It is a possibility every time you introduce your writing to the world.

9.It
can birth your vision.

Writing brings your observations,
dreams, insights, and stories to the world. It also can serve to impact your
day to day living as you build a readership and develop your platform. Earning
from your interest in writing buys you more time to explore it. It can go as
far as you care to take it.

10.It
can clear away the distractions.

Distractions are part of our
everyday experience, but reflection removes them consciously from thought
process and makes room for focus. Focus can be used for story developing,
scheduling, planning, and content producing.

The next time you are
experiencing writer’s block, think of reflection as the tool that can beat it.
You already know what you know. Take the time to remind yourself of it and your
writing time will benefit from the investment.

introducing

I am at work on my third book and I fit writing into the moments I am not at the job I love at our local university or hanging out with family and friends (disclosure: if you are my family and friends and catch me staring off into space, i may be writing the next scene while we hang out ;) I share home with my computer-building husband, our three highly entertaining sons, and a very emotionally needy cat.